


Prince Myshkin meets Nikolaj Vsevolodovich Stavrogin

by vprettyunicorn



Category: The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Бесы - Фёдор Достоевский | Demons - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, dostoyevsky, myshkin - Freeform, non Canon, they'll be fine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-14 04:01:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29536506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vprettyunicorn/pseuds/vprettyunicorn
Summary: So...I'm a Dostoevskij fan.As I read The Idiot, I thought "What would a conversation between Stavrogin and Myshkin have looked like?"Here is my take.
Relationships: Nastasya Filipovna Barashkova/Lev Nikolaevich Myshkin
Kudos: 3





	Prince Myshkin meets Nikolaj Vsevolodovich Stavrogin

**Author's Note:**

> So...  
> I'm a Dostoevskij fan.  
> As I read The Idiot, I thought "What would a conversation between Stavrogin and Myshkin have looked like?"  
> Here is my take.

_On the train_

« _Gospodin_ , is someone currently occupying this department?» a young man, with glorious dark eyes, asked. The prince turned abruptly to take in that physiognomy: the man was tall and strongly built, his pale complexion, paired with the darkness of the hair and the eyes, gave him a sharp attitude of superiority.  


«No, I am alone in here» Myshkin replied quietly. He had been thinking and trying not to remember… whatever his heart yearned to remember.  


«Good. Thank you» and his new companion sit in front of him, immediately diverting his gaze to the Russian countryside outside the window. The snow was deep and white, endless and pure.  


The prince couldn’t help but notice the silk scarf carefully weaved around the stranger’s neck, an object of exquisite craft. The scarf was a rich blue, in stark contrast with his black attire. The prince had devoted himself to wear mostly white and champagne suits for a long time now… since that summer in Pavlovsk, with Ippolit and his trees, and Aglaya Epanchina had told him that he should absolutely, only wear clear-coloured suits. _It dotes your complexion, your hair and your eyes! Not to mention, Prince, it brilliantly exemplifies your kind_.  


In that moment the door opened and the _provodnitsa_ brought tea, as per his earlier request.  


« _Gospodin_ , do you drink tea as well?» she asked the stranger.  


He turned, distracted, and his stare crossed with Myshkin’s for a moment, a split second. How that visage resurrected something in the prince’s heart! Those eyes, that paleness! If they weren’t the same that had once characterised the face of Nastasiya Filippovna.  


The man was about to refuse, but prince Myshkin intervened. «Please, bring tea for my companion here and _sushki_ , if you have any.»  


«Although I much appreciate your generosity, my friend, I have no money with me at the moment. I wish I could promise to pay you back once we reach Petersburg, but I have no way to know for certain.»  


The prince burst in a fair laugh. «I will not hold you to anything of the sort. Please, have tea and food. You need to understand, I am especially delighted to make your acquaintance» the prince stuttered and blushed vehemently «Pardon me, sir. I am Prince Lev Nikolayevich Myshkin. I believed you were…»  


«Dead?» the man snapped «No! The rope did not have the decency to hold. That, prince – and now I fully assume that you know who I am but, just to avoid any possible misunderstanding, I confirm you that I am indeed Nikolaj Vsevolodovich Stavrogin – that, I was saying, is what happens when you entrust a third part to take your life. A rope! How can a man trust a rope? A revolver, maybe, but even then you cannot be completely trusting that it will detonate. It didn’t with that Ippolit Terentyev, did it? There is to say that the disgraced boy forgot the bullet… It is, prince, surprisingly difficult how hard it is to take one’s own life.»  


The prince smiled but then stared in his teacup, caught by a sudden surge of shyness. «I would argue, my friend Stavrogin, that maybe you did not, fully, commit to your suicide. As the student Terentyev did not himself. I, on my part, am truly happy to find you alive! I have been wanting to meet you for a long time now…»  


«Why?» interrupted Stavrogin, with a sharpness that was very well matched by his dark stare «Because of my scandals in Petersburg? Or because of the letter that was published?»  


«What… what letter? No, well I admit I heard your name first when I was in Moscow, tied to a scandal, but it was in truth Nastasiya Filippovna who mentioned it.»  


«The letter I had published containing a detailed recount of my crimes. I still intended to die, at the time, before the rope betrayed my desires. Is it true… Nastasiya Filippovna died?»  


«She did» the prince admitted, looking faraway in his untouched teacup, trying to contain the shivering in his body.  


«It must be distressing» convened Stavrogin.  


«You cannot seriously mean it. What do you really intend to say, Nikolaj Vsevolodich? Were you acquainted with her?»  


«I met her once or twice, briefly, when she still lived with Tolsky. I admit I entertained the idea of taking her away from the man, but for no better life then the one she already had! Remarkable and beautiful and consuming! Even for a man-out-of-moral such as me, her character resulted fascinating.»  


«Nikolaj Vsevolodich, I can only speak of her with devotion and cannot, for all that there is in the Russian Empire, hear of her in these terms.»  


«Which terms? She was indeed beautiful, and darkly so.»  


«No! You, but I mean, also, most people who spoke of her to me, you all shove a curtain of murkiness on her, as if her own suffering was an object of beauty in itself.»  


«What was beautiful, then, if not her suffering?»  


«Oh, how ‘ _what_ ’? The veritable delicateness that accompanied her through the hardship, her modesty, the childlike innocence of her desire… her desire to trust and not being betrayed» the prince frowned «even if she must have known, at all times, that she was about to be betrayed, eventually.»  


Stavrogin eyed the prince with curiosity, as if he was expressing himself obscurely. «You loved her» he murmured, his tone delivering a stunned quality to his sentence.  


«Is it hard to recognize for a man-out-of-moral such as you? Pardon me, Nikolaj Vsevolodich, I mean no offense, I ask with genuine curiosity. Of course I loved her» he repeated «Of course I did.»  


His companion seemed to think about it, his gaze was diverted towards his own feet, as if resurrecting a sort of sheepishness that a man such as him most surely had lost long before. «I guess it must be… It is, in my defense, a quite strange sentiment. And how can it be different from pity, if something of the sort is possible at all? Especially in a case like that of Nastasiya Filippovna, her story must inspire compassion. I know it is supposed to. But then… what about her… her crimes?»  


«I never considered her culpable of anything» replied Myshkin. His voice was quiet yet stunned, he spoke with the calm of a patriarch, but his words fell like a stroke of lightning.  


«Why? Did she not behave outside of social rules? Following what I heard of her, she must have hurt you and betrayed your feelings as well.»  


There was a dark curiosity to Stavrogin’s tone, a sort of morbid pleasure in inflicting that painful interrogation on Myshkin. The prince, on his end, stared at the snow outside, as if an immense expanse of purity could ever be transferred, magically, miraculously, to the spirit of Nikolaj Stavrogin.  


«The only hurt I ever perceived was not directed toward me, as a man, nor toward my pride either» the prince stated quietly, almost meekly «It was the hurt she inflicted upon herself. She was completely innocent for her connection with Tolsky; if anything, he was the one to make amends. And then… it is true, even after she left his estate, that she acted as a woman-out-of-society, as you act like a man-out-of-moral, but it hurt her far more than it hurt me. As I believe that all the acts you performed ended up enslaving you, instead of enslaving the morals you were trying to destroy.»  


«Prince Lev Nikolaych! You can indeed penetrate the soul of a man» Stavrogin said with a malign smile, but the prince only huffed a brief laugh.  


«Do not make fun of me, Nikolaj Vsevolodich» he smiled «I am far more clumsy than I might suggest» he stuttered then, and blushed until a vermillion shade painted the entirety of his face, up to his ears and hairline «Evidently, less insightful than I fancy myself to be.»  


«But everything you said about me was true.»  


Myshkin was surprised. «Really? Do you agree with me?»  


«Of course! Why to hang myself, then?» he ripped the scarf off, to expose his tumefied throat «I admit, I was _curious_ to experience death. How would it feel to be strangled? To perceive with distinct clarity the dislodging of each vertebrae in my neck? And then… choking? Would have I felt my eyes popping out of my head? Would have I heard a voice, any voice, God’s but, more realistically, just even the sound of my own impaled conscience?»  


The prince stared at him with wide eyes, waiting with bated breath for Stavrogin to continue.  


«There was that!» he then exclaimed, not without bitterness «But… not only. You see, prince, you are a noble spirit, and that costume really dotes you and enhances your immanent qualities. Me, well, no! This scarf, blue, which is not even a great colour, at least not in the sense that signifies purity, and it is quite a dark shade, on top of that – so, the scarf was given to me by my generalless mother, Varvara Stavrogina. She thought it would exemplify my change of heart.»  


«Blue is the colour of the Virgin» the prince murmured almost inaudibly «and the colour of deep reflection. Your mother gave you a tasteful gift, Nikolaj Vsevolodich.»  


«Did she?» the other laughed maliciously «Oh, she thought I hung myself because of an epiphany of sorts! That ‘not only’ is a terrible concept, prince. It encapsulates a wilderness. Two miserable words, they mean nothing by themselves. And yet, listen to me as I utter them: “not only for it,” ‘not only’ means… everything! Would I have hanged myself for the mere whim of curiosity?» he made such an exaggerated expression that the prince burst into laughs «Ha! Ha! No, not really. Or, I do not think so. It was the rest, indeed. Because I am not Kirillov, I wish I were, I wished even harder in the past months to inhabit that silly mind of his, to be confronted only by one, definite task but… I am not Kirillov, and there was ‘ _the rest_ ’ and that ‘rest’ deserved my death.»  


The prince bore a thoughtful expression now, and felt a tiresome sadness in his heart. Was it possible that those people were destined to self-condemnation? Nastasiya Filippovna had punished herself endlessly, time and time again, until abnegation was all it was known to her. Myshkin believed she always knew of Rogozhin’s intentions, and that she was waiting to receive the ultimate blow.  


«Why do you think that it would be easier being Kirillov?»  


«He, for once, had _one_ thing to do. One! Prove his idea. That only required him to die, to shoot a bullet through his skull and be done with it. It took me no time to secure the rope and put it around my neck. I did not hesitate and, while I had pondered my act for some time, and took the time to ruin everything in reach – the names of Lizaveta Tushina and Darya Pavlovna tell you anything? – but then, when the moment came, I rushed to my death. I was eager for it. Kirillov was scared, and he died cowardly, and his idea was worth nothing. A man who shoots himself to defy God should do it brazenly, with the intent to offend and to hurt. Not… cowering and whining and pulling the trigger by chance» he scowled «that was pathetic. I even instigated him in doing so. I was there to plant the seed for his idea… the same I did with Verkhovensky… as I did with the rest of them.»  


After his fretful speech the man fell quiet, as if lost in a thought he had never considered before. And then he added: «A lot has changed in me. I do not feel regret, as I never have. But I do understand one thing, prince, and maybe you are the only one who could possibly, positively appreciate this difference: I understand that my very existence and my own nature is a danger to those I come in contact with.»  


«Is that why you did it?»  


Stavrogin smiled, as if the prince had comprehended him fully. «Yes. Even if I do not feel remorse, I understand other’s pain. I do not share it, I have no interest in knowing their pain because I originated it. And, unlike Kirillov or that imbecile of Terentyev, I am not susceptible to any difference that there may be between living and not living. I have devoided myself of the ability to be alive a long time ago.»  


«I dare say, instead, that you have never been closer to embrace God and be redempted. Oh! I am reminded now, why your name sounded familiar, besides the reason I already explained. When I was in Switzerland, a guest of that doctor, I used to educate myself, make my time there more productive, and there was an old orthodox priest, a _starovyer_ , an Old Believer, who knew Greek and he taught me to read the Scriptures. Your name reminded me of the word _stauròs_ , which means _cross_.»  


«And what should it mean more than that?»  


«Nothing. Maybe everything. To me… to me it seems that you do not realise your sacrifice, Stavrogin. You say there has been no capability to live left in you in a long time, I do not believe it. Nastasiya Filippovna used to think she had lived too much than it should be allowed, that what she endured should be followed by a durable ending, because nobody should stay alive after being as degenerated as she was… How could it not pain me?»  


«You seem to forget that Nastasiya Filippovna was subjected to moral and physical degradation by the hands of another, not the other way around. I am on the other end of the spectrum by which you analyse this situation. Had Nastasiya Filippovna and I animated her story, I would have been the one to torture her, to destroy her life, and you would be in your right to hate me for it.»  


«Then tell me, Nikolaj Vsevolodovich, how much of destroying others’ life destroyed yours?!»  


Stavrogin looked at the prince with a scornful expression, his forehead knotted in disdain, but his eyes were quiet and almost saddened. His fingers were trembling. Then his face stilled, a composed, inert mask replaced his scorn, but the stillness in his eyes was too deep to go unnoticed. «Everything» he surmised quietly «everything.»  


The prince did not reply, his heart was full of sorrow and his mind fixed on the memory of Nastasiya. The awfulness of Stavrogin was the spouse of Nastasiya’s guilt. How ironic, that the one to whom should have been asked forgiveness had also been the one begging for it.  


«I…» Stavrogin’s voice interrupted his thoughts «I remember that I wanted to understand life, and that I had no fear of getting to know the ugliness of it to do so… Terentyev once wrote, in a letter to Verkhovensky, that you said that beauty will save the world, but what beauty, I ask you, prince? Where do we find this beauty? Will this beauty redeem us?»  


«Terentyev always said that. ‘ _Mir spasyot krasotà! A kakaya krasotà?_ ’ And he would always say that it came from me. What beauty? What beauty is _left_?» Myshkin could not say it, could not say: “What beauty is left… After Nastasiya Filippovna’s death? Where do I even begin looking for it?”  


He did not want to admit, even to himself, though he knew it precisely, that beauty never really did anything for anyone who was not at the same time a firm believer and a compassionate man. He then resolved to say: «I will let you know once I find it… But… I was wondering, what is bringing you to Petersburg?»  


Stavrogin smiled, a sort of emptiness filled his eyes. «I wanted to see the Baltic sea once more… How silly.»


End file.
